Introduction to Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a virtual computing environment where the computing resources are provided to the users in shared mode. Now a days, cloud computing is buzzword and gained the competitive advantages among the corporate and business entities. In other words, cloud computing can be defined as a type of computing having the outsourcing of the programs and applications. The program and applications are hosted by the third party and Internet is used by the users to access the programs and application from the third party system repositories.
The management of hardware and software entities are under the cloud service provider so that user has less burden about to manage the hardware and software resources for the computing purposes. The other thing with the cloud computing is that user can get rented services of the computing system from the vendor such as cloud service provider and pay the usage charge only. This feature of cloud computing provides less cost for its computing as no in house infrastructure of storage hardware and management of various entities are required. Further, the user can scale the application and program as per the current requirements so that high level of service scalability is ensured to the user by cloud computing.
Internet of Things (IoT) emerged due to existence of the cloud computing environment. Basically, the cloud computing system and Internet of Things are tightly coupled with each other. As IoT system generates huge amount of data for processing to analyze the function requirement to take decision by the smart devices. The IoT is a technology that connects a lots of dispersed things such as sensors, camera, and other devices in a chain which can only be managed by the help of cloud infrastructure of computing [1]. Smart home security system, smart home heating system, smart home appliances etc are very common application areas of IoT that are managed and control through the cloud computing interfaces. The Internet is one the biggest communication gateway of information generated by the IoT devices deployed under the IoT applications. The cloud based system merge the information to process as whole with the centralized scope and also store the information in central repository. The in house store and storing the IoT generated data by IoT smart applications is not feasible as huge amount of data is generated in second and also these data are under the category of big data. Hence, there is need of virtualized storage to store the big data generated from the IoT smart applications [2].
Cloud based smart applications of IoT are more realistic and capable in the functional aspects as huge storage, virtualized servers to process the different verities of sensor data, self configurability due to remote actions and availability of application services on remote system such as mobile and android platform to monitor the functional aspects of the applications. These all beauty of IoT applications are due to cloud based deployment of the application through the third party involvement.
Description of the Applications
The cloud based smart application is selected in this context as smart home. A smart home is not a normal home, it is equipped with the electronic appliances such as humidity measure and control device, temperature measuring device, heating system, air-conditioning system and appliances. These all home devices and appliances are controlled either remotely or by central interface through a single point of interaction. The mobile devices such as smart phones and mobile hand held devices to monitor the functionalities of these home equipped appliance remotely. The feasibility of this smart home is due to integration of cloud with the communication system. The basic functional requirements of this smart homes are dictated below.
· The appliance must have the sensing capability and connected with the Internet
· Cloud storage must be integrated to store the appliance generated data.
· Each appliance must have the IP address to uniquely identified.
· The cloud system algorithm must have the capability to process the appliance generated data.
· Sensor should have auto configure capability to configure itself without user intervention.
· Web Service Description Language should be deployed and integrated with the system.
Besides these functional requirements some of the requirements which are non functional must be addressed to deploy the smart home system. These non functional requirements are as follows.
· The Internet and local sensor network or wireless network under the home to connect all the appliances must be robust and capable to carry the generated data to virtual interface.
· The devices and appliances are to be scalable to adopt both versions of IP addresses for unique identity on virtualized atmosphere.
· The Internet connectivity between the appliance interface and cloud must be dedicated and high performance to carry all data.
Identification of Cloud Service Provider with Justification
The eminent cloud based smart home service provider is ATLEN CALSOFT LABs. This is a laboratory Atlen Group of Companies. This company various categories of smart home cloud integrated service to the customers or users [3]. Atlen Calsoft Labs is working in this area from last 18 years to provide the elegant smart home system integrated with the cloud to provide better management and control over the equipped home appliances and devices. The selection of this company is taken due to its provision of different categories of services to the customer of smart homes. Some of services that justify the selection are detailed point wise as follows.
· Home networking - to provide the networking service to home it provides the residential gateway, WAP, Network security, SIP and VOIP systems, Edge routers and automation switches, and the device manager.
· Smart Home Energy – to provide smart home energy, this company provides connected home appliances and devices, energy management system, and smart meters for the...